This mama bat with three babies clinging to her fur is a red bat, not a tricolored bat, says Tom Tomasi, a Missouri State University biology professor. / Dayle Johnson

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A recent Outdoors story about a Springfield Boy Scout’s bat village prompted an observation from Tom Tomasi, professor of biology at Missouri State University.

The story included a photo of a bat and her three babies that my wife and I found in our front yard. We thought it was a tricolored bat, based on our Internet search, but we were wrong. The real critter is quite interesting, and I thank Tomasi for providing this update in an email to me:

“The bat you found in your yard with the babies was a red bat, not a tricolored bat. They look very different. . . once you become experienced at identifying bats. Two interesting features of red bats are:

“They are the only species in Missouri to regularly have multiple births.

“They can take off right from the ground.

“Three and even four young is not unusual for a red bat. It is a load, but this is how mom moves the pups. When she is out foraging for insects and needs to be more agile, they would stay in the tree where she perches. You were right to be wary of getting by a bat that is on the ground, especially in the day, but there may be some not-so-deadly reasons why she was there.

“In the daytime, bats often go torpid to conserve energy. This is a physiological state in which many body functions are slowed down and body temperature drops. In the winter, a torpor bout can last two to three weeks and be very ‘deep’ (body temperatures around 5 degrees C (40-45 degrees F), and this is commonly referred to as hibernation.

“In the summer, the bouts of torpor are typically just for a few hours and body temperature only drops to about 20 degrees C (70-75 degrees F), and this is termed ‘daily torpor.’ This is less common when pregnant or when the young are very small because mom’s body heat helps the young form faster, but your pups were already furred so may have been able to regulate their own body temperature somewhat.

“If your mother had been torpid in a tree above your yard, a sudden disturbance (major gust of wind, opossum, etc.) could have dislodged her. After falling to the ground, it would have taken perhaps 20 minutes to ‘arouse’ from torpor, and during that time, she would have appeared groggy and unable to fly.

“Even if this is not how she got on the ground, it could also be that she was not able to take off from the ground with the extra load, even though I said they can launch themselves off the ground with a normal load.”